«Mademoiselle Aïssé was the woman which launched the grotesque trend called robe à la circassienne. Her destiny signed the history of costume in an exceptional way: coming from the Circassia, in the area of the Caucasus, beautiful and impatient, she was purchased at the slave market in Constantinople by the ambassador of France Monsieur de Ferriol.

Her dress was open at the front and featured from three cords to be raised up to the ankle, sleeves more short of those of the petticoat, which instead had a cascade of lace that cames to the wrist.

Obtained with fabrics with strong colors contrasting and adorned with stripes and animal inserts, the Circassian style she anticipated centuries in its essence the spirit of the punk of the second half of the twentieth century.

Aggression and amazement, break with the elegant schemes of a respectable style, suburban origin they are just some of the affinities that in a pindaric flight join two worlds apparently very distant between them.»

The laceration of carefully selected and reworked garments corresponds to an existential break-up. Thanks to Punk culture, garments becomes the instrument to highlight boys and girls images and the consequent refusal to belong to the bourgeois class. It is a first form of Anti-Fashion, which in spite of a few years will become a glamorous trend, confirming nowadays as a classic in perpetual rework. I wrote about this this generation in my book “Macabre and Grotesque in Fashion and Costume“. Edz Progedit 2017. Outbound release, also available here: